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It’s a story that’s been told through numbers and financial documents, sales and sell-offs. But now a Toronto playwright is hoping to bring the story of Target Canada’s demise to a slightly different medium: theatre.

Robert Motum, the playwright of Community Target, is hoping to create a piece of immersive theatre that helps the audience understand what Target’s departure from Canada was like for the thousands of people employed by the company.

Target came to Canada in 2011, buying the leases of 220 Zellers stores for $1.8 billion. The first stores opened in March 2013.

Motum has interviewed former employees to get a sense of what the days leading up to Target’s closure were like.

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Many employees told Motum there was a gag order imposed by the company, the money they could have lost if they breached it has already been paid out, so they’re more willing to talk now.

“Many of them are really excited to share the stories they weren’t able to a year ago,” he said.

Eventually, Motum wants the lines spoken by the actors are all verbatim from the interviews.

“I’m not trying to add any fictionalizations or very many edits to it … I don’t want to corrupt their words,” he said.

The play is still in the early writing stages, but Motum has an idea for the ideal venue: one of the now deserted Target stores. He said he wants to create an immersive theatre experience in one of the spaces.

Immersive theatre, unlike conventional theatre, doesn’t have the audience sit while watching the action unfold on a stage. Rather, the whole venue becomes the stage, with the audience moving around, frequently guided by actors who tell the story.

Mitchell Cushman, the artistic director of Outside the March Theatre Company, the production company producing the play, said a story like Target lends itself well to the immersive theatre format, where every character can have an equal share of the spotlight.

“In a big space like a Target store, you need enough material that you can fill that space … But the exciting thing is it allows you to tell a story on a much wider canvas,” Cushman said.

In a previous immersive theatre play Cushman worked on, the venue was a school in Oakville, and the audience was allowed to follow one of any number of characters. The full story could only be told by following a different character each time, through multiple runs.

“It’s like being in a video game ... you can follow any performer and they’ll take you to a new plotline,” he said.

Motum hopes a 20-minute sneak peek of the play will be ready for August. He’s not sure when the final version will come out, but he’s hoping it will be ready within a year.

Everything from the lines to the themes are still being worked out, but Motum said one thing has consistently jumped out at him during his interviews: most of the employees, despite being sad or angry about their employer closing down with little warning, are still very loyal to the company, even a year later.

“They still sort of all have an undying love of Target. I think someone actually said ‘undying love,’” Motum said.

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